Ethereal
by VSErinM
Summary: Nobody can see the future coming, nobody can know which dreams come true. After 10 years, how does it end? S/V


Ten years ago, two people fell in love. Not the kind of love a first boyfriend receives, or a father, mother, or brother, but the kind that is truly, madly, deeply experienced. It seems like the world falls away whenever they look at each other, and that nothing exists but them. There were complications. Lots and lots of complications. So many that it's become hard to count them, or even to remember what half of them were. There was happiness, tragedy, comedy, hardships, anger, bliss. So many emotions that this love defined what it was to be alive.  
  
The rush that came with it was incomparable to anything else. Sure, they had spent a solid portion of their lives living dangerously on the edge of the world, running from enemies, stopping people who were taken over by evil, protecting their country. But none of it compared to the adrenaline that pumped through their bodies as they exchanged a kiss. It didn't even need to be the searing, mind-numbing kind, but a simple lean-and-peck, the contact between their warm mouths enough to force their hearts to race.  
  
It was a long road to get to a place where they could enjoy that feeling. It was a long road to get to a place where they weren't in danger of losing their lives just by brushing hands or being seen repeatedly in the same place at the same time. Finally, after reaching the end of the road, it was perfection.  
  
************************************************************************ A walk along the cool, cobblestone street, passing the vendors whose carts were filled with fresh baguette and wheels of Brie, Camembert and St. Paulin had become the customary morning walk. Buy a coffee at the little café on the corner, the one where the awning gave way to relieving shade and coloured the stone building's front with stripes of blue and white. Pass the vendors, and the artists, the mimes and the wood-trimmed windows, follow the winding streets towards the river. Find the fruit vendor poised by the riverside, always willing to offer the freshest of his fruits, readied with a knife to cut her an orange for her breakfast. Perhaps a mango today, it really didn't matter. Sit on the bench, watch the small boats, and bicyclists and rollerbladers fly by, over the tiny bridge and onto the paved streets. The other side was beautiful, too, but it was reserved for shopping on Saturdays, and rare retreats into real life. Even after ten years, she still didn't know what the river looked like at night. Fears of a haunting past have always prevented her from finding out.  
  
Tying her brown hair back into a low ponytail, and placing her glasses on her head, she floats barefoot through the emerald grass lining the riverbank. She approaches another small bench, one that she was sitting on for her last painting. Frederique had wanted to capture the "essence" of spring, bright flowers and shining water flowing behind her. She made the scene look alive, he had claimed. She could live with that. There was a time in her life when she was far too insecure to trust a comment that praised her, and to accept the notion that life could exist outside of the shadows; that she belonged to the light, and glowed under the sun's warm rays.  
  
Very rarely did her thoughts stray from the quiet cobblestone streets, or the breezy, lush riverside. And only on the special occasion visits would she cross to the other side. For too long, she had avoided contact. Going over there proved to be too risky, and too cosmopolitan. There was always the risk of running into someone unexpected, someone avoided on the other side. With heavy thoughts, and deep-rooted fears of being discovered and disrupted after ten years, she interrupted her routine and bought another latte before walking across the bridge onto the other side, for a brief visit to a shop-owner. Spending so little time there, she thought, would ensure that she wouldn't have any surprises, or run into unexpected people.  
  
Sydney Bristow, former CIA double-agent and woman of espionage, was afraid to cross into the city of Paris. There was once a time where she feared nothing, save for losing her loved ones. As far as her own actions went, though, she believed she was invincible; it was the only way to get through countless missions and make sure she came back each time. Maybe her reasons for returning home were what kept her alive. At the same time they were what almost destroyed her. Her first trip to a foreign country after she left her life of spying and missions behind was euphoric and frightening simultaneously. She wasn't sure if she knew how to survive in a foreign place while being herself, without some objective or goal, a deadline and a sense of hurry. It was almost inconceivable to think that she didn't have to go anywhere fast, and the last place she wanted to return to was America. She thought of exploring more of France, venturing to Normandy, but it dredged up feelings that needed to remain buried. For now, she needed to remain in Paris. For now, she needed to be invisible. 


End file.
